***Two conflicting thoughts came up when I first heard about this. The thought of a dance remake of the original, brilliant "Fast Car" instantly reminded me of the disaster of Pitbull's "Feel This Moment," but then I would later recall that Parra for Cuva's "Wicked Games" ended up being an enjoyable, fresh remake of Chris Isaak's classic. There's no denying that I love this style, and with summer approaching I will probably find myself having a good time with this (arguably) 'not bad' tropical house remake of "Fast Car" whenever I hear this. But I can't ignore the disasters that have been associated with this release and how the whole concept of this bothers me on so many levels.

What has unusually ruffled my feathers is how sudden and unexpected its rise to the #1 iTunes Aus charts has been. It has spent no less than 9 days in the top 100 on our iTunes and now it's suddenly sitting here above Justin Bieber and Adele? Those that know me well will know that I no longer what cares about what ever happens to the charts. Chart events, peaks, runs are indifferent to me because I acknowledge that it's just a reflection of what everyone else likes and I'm cool with that, not to mention how arbitrary it is taking everything at face numerical value. This is an exception though. How something so seemingly ordinary and uneventful can meteorically smash the charts just...bothers me and now I've taken to the keyboard to put down my thoughts here.

Not only is this smashing our charts, it is with a rather (in my opinion), lazy rehash of brilliant classic that did not need to be tampered in this way. Don't get me wrong, as I said before, I will certainly enjoy this whenever I hear it over the next months. But the need to make something so inferior to the original is again, bothersome to me. Not only that, the fiasco that has resulted in Australian Radio playing the Tobtok version in addition to this means that I will have to put up with two versions of this unnecessarily existing in the top 20. (Why isn't Kygo's Stay smashing as a much better alternative?)

That brings me the annoyance of the two versions which must have resulted from the worst marketing and communications fail. I first heard what ended up being the Tobtok version yesterday on the radio (where I thought it was Jonas Blue) and I had many problems with it. Hearing the Jonas Blue version now on Youtube has brought huge confusion and I would have stayed confused if I wasn't clarified of the whole debacle later. Simply put, this is a huge mess. We don't need two covers of the same song. That same song is going to be overplayed twice on radio. What a disaster. It's just a huge mess.

With all that aside, I think I'm meant to actually the review the song now, so here goes. Did I mention two versions of this song are charting at the moment? Since they both had to exist I'm going to have to discuss both now.

TOBTOK: My first thought when I heard this on the radio is that man, River sucks. She couldn't be more of a female generic dance voice. It's so...fake. Manufactured. I also left with the impression that the breakdown is very non-eventful but thankfully I take that comment back after listening to this with better quality headphones. The piano chords are really effective and provide a solid foundation for the beat. That repeated melody that is used for the breakdown on the other hand is quite lazy. That single aspect of the song had the potential to be much more interesting. (Jonas Blue's breakdown is equally distasteful in another way but more about that later). Finally, I don't like how he fades out the breakdown each time it concludes. It's a real momentum killer. Flaws aside, there are some really nice moments here such as how the breakdown melody is used in the verses. That's pretty effective. There's also heaps of cool chord progressions here and the production outside of the breakdown is strong. I love how he has retained the acoustic guitar which really adds to the tropical flavour of this dance piece.

JONAS BLUE: Dakota is interesting. While it's probably because she sounds more like Tracy Chapman, she sounds more convincing than River. On the other hand, she sounds so out of place on the track. You win some, you lose some I guess. I personally prefer to River still. The production here is also more effective than Tobtok but only in parts. I like how he builds during the verses before reaching an effective climax by the end of the chorus. Piano chords are not as good as Tobtok's use of them though. By now, it appears that Jonas Blue trumps Tobtok but then that awful excuse of a breakdown comes on. Talk about...lazy! Even more so than Tobtok! It sucks. Taking the version of the original acoustic guitar melody, simplifying it with cliche rhythms, put it up an octave and repeating it ad nauseam and I'm just about to go batty. Especially since I've been listening to both versions of this song non-stop for the past half-hour for this review. It's lazy, disjointed and very out of place and it appears way too suddenly to be enjoyable.

So what's the verdict? Neither, but they exist so I'm going to have to put up with them. In all honesty, I will definitely enjoy both because it's just what I'm into nowadays. In fact, I look forward to the time I hear them at the next party so congratulations to both Tobtok and Jonas Blue for achieving their goals. I'll probably even chart both. It's just that I wish I was writing about something more fresh, more original, more creative. Both versions will have to be content with a 3 and my rating will not improve.

EDIT: I am much preferring Tobtok now. Jonas Blue's version is just cliche and it is starting to sound really cheap. River has improved a lot too.Last edited: 25.12.2015 06:27

****For some reason, I think that the breakdown does actually work in a tropical house sense, so I do enjoy it for that.

I think what I appreciate this and the Tobtok version for more though is if it exposes a new generation to the Tracy Chapman classic. Of course, this and that other remix is nowhere near to beating the original, but the original is in the Top 100 on iTunes now, so anything which exposes and sells it further is a good thing in my book.

I thought I made get that out of the way now, as it appears that after a quick ascent to #1 on iTunes somehow over the Christmas period, it is already taken a heavy drop. It probably won't match "Cheerleader" in the sales department.

*Why cover an emotional, story based song like Fast Car if you're going to strip it of all emotion and overbear all the lyrics with horrendous production that's completely out of place? Well, it would be out of place if the vocal wasn't that completely horrible generic dance artist voice that probably comes from a computer somewhere. This needs to die in a fire.

**I have strong distaste towards anyone who believes electronic music is inherently without merit.I have strong distaste towards anyone who believes popular music is inherently without merit.I have strong distaste towards anything that makes it harder for me to make my point.

***It's worth pointing out that I don't hate this. I just find myself disappointed with the existence of it and the fact that it was such a success.

Perhaps my biggest issue is that it does sound like it's trying too hard to emulate the original track as much as possible that it comes across as unnecessary. Dakota's vocals aren't exactly the same as Tracy Chapman's, but they are quite husky and masculine. Perhaps in an attempt to trick people into thinking it's close to as good as the original? Not that her vocals are bad, but I feel it's noteworthy to point that out because the vocals really stick out in an odd way amongst the tropical house beats. On that note, those beats are pleasant enough on the ears. But with more listens it becomes painfully clear how much it sounds like Kygo. I can't really commend it for much on that note. I also think it fails as a tropical house record, because I don't think it captures a tropical essence or anything remotely sounding like summer which makes it success currently a bit more baffling. I don't like how contrived the success of this "Fast Car" cover in particular is, it's not really easy to get behind. Especially if it's true that Tobtok did it first. I mean how can you respect Jonas Blue as an artist when his (so far) only hit not only is a cover of another song, but an idea that he pinched from someone else?

Still, it could definitely be worse. I do find the instant hate it has received rather disheartening and predictable. Besides, at least it wasn't Charlie Puth at #1 that week.

*****I'm so over tropical house and I hated this initially. Then it was played on a night out where I was high and drunk and it sounded absolutely sublime so it has grown on me since then. It certainly doesn't have the same impact as the original (do people seriously expect that from any cover), but that's not to say that it' doesn't have a soul.

*I hate this more on concept than anything else. As a song itself it is listenable without being particularly memorable or enjoyable. But it's a massive hit and totally destroys the emotion of the original. Like absolutely obliterates any feeling attached to the lyrics. And for that it's deserving of the above rating from me. It just shouldn't exist.